


Tell Me How This Is Not The End

by MandoKain



Series: Aliit [11]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Order 66, Support Networks, despair is death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 10:40:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20795312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MandoKain/pseuds/MandoKain
Summary: A small band of rogues and runaways learns of the dark turn the future holds, and one is momentarily swallowed by grief and despair. A reminder is needed, and a goal is made.





	Tell Me How This Is Not The End

Cain was sitting in the chair with their eyes a million miles away. They didn’t appear to notice when he came in and sat beside them, legs folded and hands in his lap, on the floor next to the chair.

“Cain.”

There was no response. Their gaze was still directed down and to their right at something he couldn’t see. Bard tried again. “Cain.”

“_What_.”

He’d never heard that tone from them. Not that voice. He’d heard pain, and fear, and sorrow, but not this alkaline fury, this pinched tightness that seemed to pull and drag inward on them. He watched the fingers of their right hand curl into the arm of the chair, as though claws might extend from their pale green fingers to dig into the soft material. Their lekku were curled up like fists in a way the ARC had never seen them, in all the months he’d known the little Twi'lek. The sight, the sound, made his stomach churn.

“It is not the end.”

“Isn’t it?” The words were hissed. “You heard them. The loss of all free will. The overthrow of millions of minds. The destruction of peace and the obliteration of any possible progress that could have been made.” Cain’s lekku curled tighter, and Bard winced. That looked _painful_. The leather on the arm of the chair creaked as their nails dragged against it. “Tell me how it is not the end, then.” Cain turned their head and met his eyes.

“Convince me.”

The words were so bitter that Bard’s mouth twisted, as harsh and painful as if he’d been burned. He took a deep breath, and steadied himself. That was not directed at him, not truly, and he knew that. It was directed at Cain’s pain, at their hopelessness in the face of an insurmountable task.

They couldn’t stop what was coming. He knew that. The Force visions their friends had seen showed destruction on a far greater scale than anything their little band, smaller than a battalion in number, could achieve. But that didn’t mean they were entirely useless, even in the face of overwhelming odds.

“Your family.” Bard looked Cain in the eye. “You have saved, in some way, every single one of us. _Every single one_. You’ve saved others who would have had their lives, their essence, taken from them. You’ve freed those who lived their lives in slavery, in more ways than one, and to each of those, each of _us_, you have made a difference. You can do it again.”

“How.” It wasn’t really a question. It was an admission of grief, of despair, that the end was coming and they did not know how to face it.

“We go out and find others. Isolated vode, small groups, dispatched on solitary missions. You and the others use your contacts in the Order and the army, and we start de-chipping as many as we can. Those that want out entirely we can smuggle out. They’ll be hidden in the casualty numbers,” he advised, keeping the grief from his own voice as he said the last two words. “We get to every single clone we can, and we save them. We can’t stop this on a large scale, but one by one we can make a difference, give each vod we meet a chance, an opportunity, a hope. We _have_ to give them that chance. You know this galaxy, you know nothing like this will happen without resistance. We get to as many as we can, they will be there to fight back.”

He’d watched Cain’s face as he spoke. It had gone from one kind of hard to another, and he’d watched the lines of their expression change. Bard stood, placing a hand over theirs, and met their eye. “We cannot do everything. But we can still do _something_.”

Cain’s breathing was steady, and they didn’t move for a few moments. Slowly, their lekku uncurled, flowing down their back again, though the tips still flicked back and forth like panthers’ tails. Bard felt their hand relax, gradually, and he finally relaxed too.

“All right,” his vod’ika whispered, and he was relieved to hear the bitterness had faded. “We will do that. You’re right. We have to give every one we can a chance.” They looked down at where his warm brown hand covered theirs, small, light green and stress-cold, and they shifted it to hold his properly. “I am sorry if I scared you.”

“Only a bit,” he murmured.

“I’m glad you came.”

“I am too. I was more worried of how you were going to react than anything else. I don’t want you to give up. We can’t afford that, and you have more strength than that, vod’ika.” Cain rose, and Bard lifted his free arm. They moved and tucked themself against him. “Don’t look at what you can’t do.” He rubbed their back lightly. “Focus on what you can.”

“Thank you, ori’vod,” they whispered. “I would be lost without you.”

“We’re family, Cain. You’ll always have me. And we’re not going to see this happen without fighting as hard as we can.”

“Damn right.” Cain took a deep breath and pulled back, looking up at him. “We need to go get Xhona to tap into GAR systems and find out where the nearest isolated unit is. Talk to the rest of the team, tell them what we’re doing. I’m trusting you with this pep talk.”

Bard laughed, a soft sound, but pleasant. “Don’t worry. I’m sure they’ll be raring to swoop in and save their vode, even our baby medic.”

“They better be. This isn’t just our usual raiding missions. This is the future on the line.”

“Don’t _worry_, Cain.” Bard squeezed their shoulder. “We’re all family. We won’t let our vode down. We’ll save as many as we can before that order goes out.”

“Yes.” Their voice, so full of impotent rage and bitterness earlier, now rang with purpose. “_We will._”

**Author's Note:**

> Shrari Kashk and Cain's brother Kell both had visions of Order 66 before it happened, and around 6 months before they both got vivid flashes of the details (and then when it actually went down... that was Rough) and told the others about it. Cain's resolution after Bard's pep talk was a series of essentially-crusades to de-chip as many as they could. Fives, who has been with Panther Squad a while at this point, does give Rex the heads up almost immediately after this, and they de-chip Torrent Co in secret. (This saves Tup before his chip goes haywire. I told you this was going off the canon rails.)


End file.
